Towards Better Davening and Torah Reading
Parshat Yitro

Column #14. The contents of this weekly column are based on the sefer: EIM LAMIKRA HASHALEIM, by R' Nissan Sharoni, Ashdod, a guide to correct pronunciation of Hebrew, specifically in davening and Torah reading. 

Last week's Torah readings had two noteworthy words as far as this column is concerned. As we well know, Hebrew words are accented on the last syllable (MILRA) or the next-to-the-last syllable (MIL'EIL). There is only (?) one Hebrew word that is accented on the second-to-the-last syllable. In AZ YASHIR, the water of the sea is described as being piled up. NE-er-mu MA-yim. The word ne-er-MU alone would be pronounced MILRA. But here, in its only appearance in Tanach, it precedes the word MA-yim, a MIL'EIL word. In such cases, the accent of the preceding word "retreats" - NASOG ACHOR. In the case of NE-er-mu, we have a rare (unique?) double-NASOG ACHOR, resulting in a word pronounced on the third syllable from the end. 

English, by the way, is loading with double MIL'EIL words. History, elephant, strategy, motherly, traveling, basketball...

In the beginning of Yitro (which we also read last Shabbat) is another word that seems to be double-MIL'EIL — and without NASOG ACHOR because of the word that follows it. Rather, a "real" second-to-the-last syllable accent. The word is "into the tent", ha-O-he-la. Unlike the once-occurring NE-er-mu, ha-O-he-la appears 8 times in Tanach - with Sara & Avraham, Rivka & Yitzchak, Moshe Rabeinu (3 times), Eldad & Meidad, Yehoshua and Achan, and Yael and Sisra (also read last week). 

Alas, ha-O-he-la is not really a double-MIL'EIL. And that is because the second HEI is not voweled with a SEGOL, but rather a CHATAF SEGOL (i.e. the 5-dot cluster, which is a SH'VA attached to the right of a SEGOL). CHATAFs come in three flavors – CHATAF PATACH, CHATAF KAMATZ, and CHATAF SEGOL. Each of them is treated as a SH'VA NA, even though the vowel sound is a bit longer than a SH'VA NA (remember that a SH'VA NACH does not add any vowel sound to the consonantal letter it is under, whereas the SH'VA NA does give a very short vowel sound. The CHATAFs are more vowel-ly than the SH'VA NA, but much less than there namesake vowels. And they (the CHATAFs) don't really make their own syllables. Just as a SH'VA NA is does not make its own syllable. First pasuk in Yitro - to Moshe, L'MOSHE, does not have three syllables - L'-MO-SHE, but rather two - L'MO and SHE. Third pasuk, Moshe's first son is GEI-R'SHOM, two syllables. The REISH with the SHVA NA is attached to the SHOM syllable. It does not constitute its own syllable. 

The CHATAFs are sort of like that. They NEVER get the accent in a word. And they too "officially" belong to the syllable that follows them. Pasuk 7, beginning of Yitro (just to use this week's sedra for our examples), and they greeted each other, VA-YISH-ALU... the ALEF with the CHATAF PATACH is not its own syllable, but is a shortened PATACH sound and is joined to the LU syllable. 

And so, a few words later, is ha-O-hela (not as was written earlier, ha-O-he-la, giving the HEI-CHATAF SEGOL its own syllable). Therefore, ha-O-hela sounds as if it is double MIL'EIL – but it really isn't. It is "regular" MIL'EIL. The last syllable is hela and the next-to-the-last (penultimate) syllable is O, which gets the accent, making the word a regular MIL'EIL (that just sounds like a double MIL'EIL).

That leaves NE-er-mu in the unique position of being the only double-MIL'EIL word in Tanach (unless we find out about another one from one of our readers, in which case we will be sure to report it in the next TBDATR column). And remember, that its double MIL'EIL-ness resulted from the double migration of the accent.

This column was not just about NE-er-mu MA-yim, but about the CHATAFs as well. There is one other aspect of the CHATAFs that needs some discussion. Watch for it in an upcoming column.